Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Welcome to the Best of The WELL 2008.  We will be revisiting some hot topics
and end of year thoughts from some of our featured conferences.

The WELL is not a book, it's a tome.  An ongoing story of our members lives
and times and thoughts on all things.

So I have invited some of our authors (conference hosts and members) to
participate in an end of year celebration of this year's musings.

Enjoy!
  

    
First up are the hosts from the <cooking.> conference.

Cynthia Dyer-Bennet says her love of the kitchen came through her mother,
 who taught her how to make bread at age 8. She is a former WELL staffer
 who's been a member of this community for more than 15 years, and a host
 of the <cooking.> conference since the spring of 1994.

Jessica Merz  seems to have inherited her Viennese great-grandmother's
baking genes (but not jeans). By profession Jessica is a software product
designer and usability engineer (or "architect," as her business card so
pompously declares). When she's not working she's generally raising/playing
with her beautiful and incredible son.

Welcome ladies.  How's it cooking?
  

    

It's great, Lisa, I'm delighted to be here.
  

    
Hi Lisa, thanks for having us!

It's been another terrific year in the Cooking Conference, talking of
all ingredients butter, sugar, exotic and mundane.  We've discussed our
favorite culinary exploits and kitchen disasters.

Some of the best discussions have been around holiday cooking,
including someone's holiday cooking shopping list tallying up 52 egg
yolks plus 32 whole eggs.  That's a whole lot of holiday feasting fun!

So apropos of the season, we thought it would be fun to discuss what
we're all doing for holiday cooking this year.  What favorite recipes
will you be cooking or especially looking forward to?
  

    
About a dozen years ago a new customer of ours gave us "W & B's Cheese
Party" for a holiday gift.  They filled a beautiful crock with a Stilton and
something else, who-knows, mixture, put a label on it, bagged it up with
some gourmet crackers, and VOILA! a party in a bag.

Over the years this customer has become our dear friends.  So, on Thursday
last Ken went to their house with KitchenAid Stand Mixer in hand to help
make 150 "W & B's Cheese Party" gifts.  All I have to say is


80 Pounds of Stilton Cheese is the basis for the party.



I, otoh, will begin the cookie baking over the weekend:
pecan butter balls
lace florentine
x-mas shaped sugar cookies with royal icing

I'm looking forward to more inspiration.
  

    
So far your baking sounds delicious, <lrph>.  I'm curious about those
pecan butter balls.

This year I'm going to cook a Christmas dinner at my house for hubby,
baby, my mother-in-law, father (freemountain) and step-mother.  And
maybe sister and her kids and whoever else would like to come by. 
Surprisingly (to me), this is the first time I've hosted a Christmas
dinner.  In fact, I've never done a turkey before!

I'm still mulling the menu but so far my ideas are:
Turkey (duh)
Ham (the delicious recipe I got from <darlis> for Thanksgiving
Ginger/orange cranberry relish
Brussel sprout salad that my sister made for Thanksgiving
Roasted root veggies
Garlic mashed potatoes
Something green...
Apple and cherry pies

I haven't yet contemplated cookie baking for the season but, now that
my son is old enough to want to play with his cousins, my sister and I
should do a couple of cookie baking weekends if we can swing it. 
Favorite cookie recipes:

Hussaren krapfen (great-grandma's recipe)
Vanilla kipfels (great-grandma's recipe)
Mexican besos
Ginger pennies
Rolled, cookie cutter cookies for the kids to decorate
  

    
>80 lbs of stilton cheese

whimpering softly with desire....

For me it's not christmas without a gingerbread house, pfefferneuse,
and a good pie.

It's a good christmas if I can conjure up some children to decorate
the house or gingerbread cookie ornaments with me.  
  

    
I lovvvve pfefferneuse!  I'd love to make a gingerbread house, too but
need to figure out a "glue" other than royal icing, as "the boy" is
allergic to eggs.  He has to be able to help decorate, after all!
  

    

> The WELL is not a book, it's a tome.

I would say instead that it's a party. There are many discussions
going on about different topics in different places.
  

    
I think a simple sugar syrup would make a fine alternative cement for
a gingerbread house.  Another alternative would be to use something to
pin the pieces together--brainstorming here....toothpicks are too
delicate, popsicle sticks might be too bulky, probably bamboo skewers
would be just right to use as pegs.  I suspect pegs plus a conventional
powdered sugar frosting would be adequate.

If you make the house with thick slabs cut after baking as I usually
do*, you should have enough wall thickness to hold up to pegging
together without crumbling.  Also, the thick walls will make a more
stable structure that is less reliant on the cohesive strength of the
'glue' to hold together.

* <http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/GingerbreadMen.html>
*<http://www.flickr.com/photos/debunix/sets/72157594438687588/>
  

    
You are inspiring!  I know Mark works all day Saturday, so Davey and I
will an unplanned day together.  Perhaps I'll bake up a bunch of
ginger bread Friday night and get it all pre-cut and ready to put
together and decorate.  Oh man, this could be fun!
  

    
Pecan butter balls... gingerbread houses... Vanilla kipfels... oh my!

For me The WELL is a place, and the residue of conversing together
here is a lot like a written collaboration.  In some corners it is very
book-like. People have said "the diary that talks back" and "the town
made of words," and it's all that and more, depending on when and
where.

(I have to confess that I usually avoid the foodie conferences, both
cooking AND chow.ind, because the combination of talented food
preparers, excellent writers and sharp wit can make me HUNGRY.  It's a
form of literate food-porn for me, but with a little essential and
provocative political context mixed in as a saving grace.)

But now that you're here...  holiday food is such a fascinating
subject. I am going to be spending Hanukkah and Christmas with my
non-meat/poultry eating, non-observant Jewish sweetie, so that adds at
least a bissell of complexity. My childhood memories and his really
differ, so we look for new traditional foods based on our own time
together, and the need to splurge a little but honor the earth in some
way too.  I'm cooking for guests this Friday evening, in fact, and it's
a perfect time to think of something that will delight and inspire.  I
do know they and we all like artisan ales and beers, and that might be
fun to explore.  Maybe I use top quality malt extract to sweeten a
cheese cake, for example, and that can start to be our next holiday
tradition? 

I'm thinking... I'm thinking...
  

    

I have no idea yet what I'll be doing as far as a Christmas meal. I'm not
that much of an advance planner. I tend to buy my groceries more
spur-of-the-moment based on what's on sale, or what suddenly appeals to
my palate or looks especially good and fresh once I get to the market.

At this point in the season, I'm still working on good food gifts. I love 
the idea of homemade cheese spreads as gifts, Lisa. Especially if they lack
that weird "sticks to the roof of the mouth in an unpleasant, glue-y way"
thing that a lot of those cheesefood spreads in plastic chubs do.

I've been experimenting with making mustards for the past couple months.
I've got a good stoneground mustard with chardonnay and tarragon 
developed and have jarred some up now. I'm still struggling to come up
with a deeper, darker stoneground using merlot and red wine vinegar.
It's getting better with each batch, but it still has too much bite, I
need to continue adjusting.

I'll make a third version -- a honey/dijon style -- and package up all
of them in groups of threes. I'm thinking it'd be nice to get a gift
of homemade edibles that won't swell your waistline and won't go stale.

Not that I don't love to get cookies. Anybody thinking of sending me 
cookies is more than welcome!
  

    
>homemade edibles that won't swell your waistline and won't go stale

that's a good point.  I am definitely guilty of the
swell-your-waistline type food gifts, although at times I've branched
out to things like some homemade pasta (dried) or jams and applesauce. 
And a few people I *really* like might get canned homemade stock if
they are likely to use it.
  

    
As always, I'm in awe of (debunix)'s photos of her baked goods, and my
stash of her recipes is now richer by one more!  Those mustards sound
wonderful, especially that dark one.  What would that be good on,
cheeses?  And speaking of cheese, how do you handle 80 pounds of the
stuff?

All of these ideas sound so great.  This year, though, I'm thinking of
not baking cookies since it's just too tempting to nibble away at all
of the (ahem) imperfect ones.  So, I think I'm going with something
larger, like panettone for my Western friends.  I bought a bunch of
quinces that I'm going to candy as soon as they ripen up a bit and use
them as the main fruit.  It will look pretty and not be too stressful. 


For my Chinese friends I'm making mochi cake with dark brown sugar,
toasted walnuts, and sweet Chinese dates; it's baked instead of steamed
and is a great variation on the traditional steamed New Year's cakes
(niangao).  And, fortunately for me, they're baked in bundt pans so I
can't nibble away on them, either!
  

    
THings that are larger and given intact do help the cook avoid the
nibblies.

But you can always sequester a custard cup of batter to bake for
yourself separately.
  

    
Chanukah coincides with Christmas this year and I may end up having a
Chanukah party on Christmas afternoon because neither of the weekends
of Chanukah work for me. I usually do a potluck so besides making the
latkes and providing the toppings, other people bring food.
  

    

Are there any particular dishes (besides latkes, of course) that you're
really hoping to see on the table, Julie? And what inedible horror do 
you fear? I mean, is "green bean casserole" (the kind with a can of
cream of mushroom soup glop mixed in and those weird canned crispy onion
ring strings sprinked over the top) the worst thing that might show up?
Or is there something even more dreadful, in your opinion?
  

    
I'm sure there are worse things, but that image has almost overcome
the pleasing hot-chocolate tummy feeling from breakfast 
  

    
Now I know that lots of folks love it, but I just do not enjoy
marshmallow covered sweet potatoes.  I do have a wonderful memory of a
Christmas past relating to them, however.  One aunt (married in to the
family) just had to have marshmallow topped sweet potatoes or it wasn't
Christmas dinner, so she brought over a dish ready to be topped with
mallows and broiled.

At the time I had a very smart, sweet and funny British boyfriend. 
This whole concept of sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top was a
real oddity to him.

Anyway, the aunt put the dishin the oven and, being a little spacey,
walked away.  A little while later my boyfriend noticed a funny smell,
walked over to the oven, peeked in, quickly closed the oven door and
exclaimed with a look of surprise, "They're on fire!"  Then, with a
giggle, opened the door again and again closed it quickly, "They're on
fire!"  The next time he opened it, laughing, he put the fire out and
then exclaimed, "It's the English Patient!"

My mom's made marshmallow covered sweet potatoes ever since.
  

    
Despite my efforts to serve sweet potatoes to my children in other ways,
they really love the marshmallows on top.  For them, it's comfort food.

Julie, do you think anyone will bring doughnuts to your Channukah party?

On Christmas morning, I will be making apple baby pancakes.  Best part of
those for me is I can prepare everything the day before, put it all in the
fridge, and take them out for baking in the morning.  That way I don't have
to be busy preparing food while my children want to open their loot.
  

    
Ooooh. That apple baby pancakes idea is a really good one.

Y'all are making me hungry. That always happens with these. I'm like <gail>
that way.

Christmas day, our tradition is not to make an actual meal, but to graze.
There's sometimes some kind of breakfast casserole, sometimes not. But
mabe cinnamon rolls. Later bagels, cream cheese, lox. Later some shrimp.
Later some good cheese. Maybe pistachios. A range of flavors, serving temps,
things for the fingers, so that the pattern is open some prezzies, stop and
eat, open some more prezzies, eat some more, and like that.

Pancakes should be on the list.
  

    
I like that idea of having fresh cinnamon rolls on xmas morning. I'll
probably have to do something like that now.  Gee thanks. :-p
  

    
Oh, me too.  But instead of cinnamon rolls, I like to make sticky buns
with too many pecans.

"English Patient."  Sorry, I have to go away and laugh really hard for
a while.
  

    
>>>I just do not enjoy marshmallow covered sweet potatoes.<<<

Me either. Dreadful dish.

I've been baking homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning since I
was a teen in Mill Valley. They're fantastic with gifts... and
mimosas. 
  

    
Our Christmas morning menu is building as the discussion continues!